


A Glass for Seeing

by Northland



Category: Pamela Dean - The Secret Country Trilogy
Genre: Faux-Elizabethan Dialogue, Gen, Quotations, Unicorns, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 05:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northland/pseuds/Northland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three things the Princess Laura learned about Fence & Randolph.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Glass for Seeing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The Strange Pupa](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=The+Strange+Pupa).



In her dream, Laura was in the Enchanted Forest again, on a day of summer like the one of the unicorn hunt, and another unicorn was there, drinking in the stream. Knowing this was only a dream gave Laura the courage to speak. She cleared her throat and called out, "Hello."

The unicorn raised its head, collected itself and leaped from the stream to the bank with a flash of foam. It moved like a cat, as if there were more bones in its spine than the horse it resembled. Where it lay down, cornflowers and celandine rippled through the coarse grass. Laura blinked and saw the shaggy streambank suddenly overhung with brambly wild roses and morning glories. She looked carefully at the unicorn's eyes. They were violet instead of beryl-coloured, so this was not Chryse, but an ordinary unicorn. If you could call any unicorn ordinary.

A thin voice trilled _That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence_. Laura jumped and the unicorn snorted, blowing damp air over Laura's shins. She supposed no-one liked to be called ordinary, though in her opinion it was preferable to weeks of enforced royalty.

"Wherefore thy summons?" Laura jumped again, guiltily, but the unicorn sounded only mildly interested instead of angry. Now that she had a unicorn in front of her, even if it was only a dream, what to ask? She thought of Ted. He had seen more of the story of the Secret Country happen than any of them, and he was worried.

"Can we trust Randolph? I mean, is he trustworthy?" Laura added hastily, can, may and should tangling in her head.

"Those are two questions, each with its several answer," the unicorn said with mirth poorly concealed.

Laura sighed. "The second one, then."

The unicorn bent its head and regarded her out sideways of one melting amethyst eye. "Lord Randolph is worth trust. Whether he is worthy of yours is not for us to say. Ask thy question of Fence."

Laura rolled her eyes mentally, but was careful to do the unicorn a courtesy before backing away, even if it was only a dream.

\- * -

"Randolph thought you were a _spy_?" Ellen found the idea delightful, to judge from her smirk.

Laura was horrified. Yet another example of the way their own lovingly made-up story clashed with the history of the real Hidden Land at stray moments, usually just when she thought she'd gotten used to its strangeness. "I thought you and Randolph were fast friends as soon as you met!" she protested.

In her mind's eye, she'd always seen Fence and Randolph meeting as gangly teenagers, hardly older than Ted was now, and knowing each other instantly for kindred spirits. ( _Anne of Green Gables_ was too soppy in parts, but Laura strongly approved of kindred spirits.) Then again, none of the children had even known that Fence came from the Outer Isles... Laura sighed and chewed unhappily on the end of one braid.

"What trouble, maid?" Fence asked. "What matter when Randolph and I did meet?"

Laura blurted, "Because Randolph should have known you weren't a spy."

Fence laughed. The memory certainly didn't seem to trouble him. "He did suspect I but played the part of country bumpkin, thinking that none could be so ignorant. In truth I was green as glass and too wonder-struck by High Castle to hide it." He looked up at one of the torch brackets above their heads. "That was in the reign of Margaret; a stern lady, but a wise one."

Renewed confusion rose up and choked in Laura's throat. Fence looked back at the two girls and noted her dazed look. "I have forgot, thou hast known no sovereign but William."

"What happened to Margaret?" Laura asked cautiously. And had she been King William's mother or sister -- or wife? Biting her tongue to keep back the questions she really wanted to ask but couldn't without risking being caught out as not the real Princess... unlike lacing her dresses, it wasn't becoming any easier with time.

Fence shrugged. "A fall while hunting, which none did suspect aught else. Even Randolph and Benjamin, whose minds are of like crafty bents, did declare themselves satisfied and proved was nothing sly." He pushed his cap back on his head, disarranging his sandy hair. It made him seem even younger, like a high school kid in his graduation robes. "Of late I have bethought myself if 'twere the Dragon King's first subtle stratagem."

 _Or Claudia's_ , Laura thought but did not say. Ellen raised a significant eyebrow, signalling the same idea.

Fence seemed to remember who he was talking to about the possible murder of a queen and smoothed the worry from his forehead. Laura sighed. He was about to treat them like children again. "Where's Agnes?" he asked, looking over the hall. "Tis past time for thee and thy sister to be well abed, surely."

\- * -

The Princess Laura was sick of being royal. At breakfast she had spilled more hot chocolate over Ellie's green velvet cloak. Agatha had not gotten angry, as she had the first few times Laura performed some spectacular feat of clumsiness, but tsked under her breath instead, accompanied by pitying looks.

Laura had fled from the room (tripping on the bed curtains as she did) and gone in search of a place to be alone, ignoring Ellen's piercing call. Her cousin's vigorous consolation was not what she wanted.

At this time of day, the gallery overlooking the Dragon Hall seemed the best place to be undisturbed. Laura thumped down behind an old wooden screen discarded in a corner, put her chin on her bruised knees, and kept tears out of her eyes by opening them wide and refusing to blink. The question was, would she still rather be here than back at her cousins'? She broke just as many things there, but at least her aunt and uncle expected it of her. Whether that was worse or better was undecided.

Laura concentrated on the dull sheen of the polished wood. Randolph and Fence made up for a lot. Benjamin frightened her, Agatha unnerved her, and Claudia made her angry, but the two wizards were reassuringly as she had expected them to be.

At first she thought she was remembering their voices. By the time she realized that Fence and Randolph were arguing their way down the hall, no doubt also in search of a place for quiet and solitude, it was too late to slink away. Terror of knocking over the heavy screen -- probably onto a forgotten piece of porcelain -- kept Laura frozen in the corner. She might have stood and greeted the wizards, but the strain in their voices said they would not welcome an interruption.

Laura was a polite child and disliked eavesdropping. She told herself firmly she was spying for her brother Prince Edward, but bringing the game into this didn't make her feel better. She forgot her scruples when Fence's first audible words proved to be about them.

"What of the children?"

Laura put her eye carefully to one of the gaps in the cedar screen and saw Randolph shrug. "They are of ages wherein a fortnight's absence may work great changes, and thou wert gone far longer."

Fence frowned. Something about the flippancy of Randolph's answer seemed to displease him. "More than that alone, I fear. Art hiding somewhat."

The compressed nature of the Secret Country's speech grated on Laura's understanding. She wished she'd been old enough to read more Shakespeare.

"And what of Lady Claudia?" Fence mused half-aloud, like a man who had forgotten anyone was there to hear.

Randolph twitched. "I confess I was the more fooled. She touched my vanity, but now I am forewarned 'gainst her."

"Tis no matter now she is gone," Fence said curtly.

 _She is gone, she is lost, she is found, she is ever-fair_ , a faint voice in her head sang. Laura looked over her shoulder for this strange new speaker. She lost a few moments of the conversation while she experimented with shaking her head to see if it might dislodge the voice. When she stopped, faintly dizzy, Fence was speaking again, slowly and steadily, as if Randolph were a dog whose temper was uncertain.

"You are my apprentice and my charge, wherefore I may not use thee as I wish. That," he said, "was the way of Melanie with Shan."

Randolph spat a noise of disgust. "I am not so treacherous, nor you so blind, to meet that end."

Fence rubbed his forehead, and the sapphire in his ring reflected ripples of watery light over his face. "Even if I were to allow the argument so far, there is another matter you have not touched."

Randolph did not look down, but his face reddened slowly like a blot of ink spilled over a white page. "The Lady Ruth would be well pleased."

"Oh aye," Fence said wearily, "but 'tis not her pleasure alone we must look to. Call thyself a courtier, to forget the affairs of royalty are watched as close as an egg to be hatch't? Think on Fair Rosalind before hurling such insult at a princess of the Hidden Land."

The closest torch had sunk to a dim ruddy glow against the wall. Fence flicked a finger and sent it leaping high again. In its now kingfisher light, Randolph's eyes were more turquoise than green. He laughed bitterly. "And now I must content myself with having broken the only treasure I possess." He shoved back from the railing and flung himself toward the hallway.

"Do me not that wrong." Fence's voice stopped Randolph in mid-step. Laura shrank back into her corner and wished fiercely to be anywhere else. This was worse than any grown-up quarrel she'd overheard before, they were so painfully polite. Fence laid a hand on Randolph's shoulder. "If I refuse thee, 'tis only to be sure that treasure never tarnishes."

Randolph stood still under Fence's hand for a moment and then slid out from under it and vanished into the corridor without another word. Fence turned back and rested his head in his hands, elbows on the railing, looking small and tired. Laura held her breath until he left the gallery and she was free to find her cousin. Ellen pestered her to tell where she had been, but Laura wouldn't say.

**Author's Note:**

> "That which ordinary men...": _King Lear_ , Act 1, Scene 4  
> "She is gone...": _The Ocean to Cynthia_ , Sir Walter Raleigh


End file.
